THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER
A Timeline of Events Surrounding the Radical Right's Attempt to Subvert American Democracy
Written and Compiled by Black Max
1961-1970:
1968
"Operation Garden Plot," the first of several government plans to suspend the Constitution and declare martial law
- Operation Garden Plot" is developed. Discovered by Senator Sam Ervin during his 1971 investigation of Watergate, the plan, officially known as the United States Civil Disturbance Plan 55-2, gives federal forces the authority to use "deadly force" against any "dissident." The plan is periodically updated, and has been implemented several times, most recently in the 1992 Los Angeles riots following the Rodney King trial, and the 2002 WTO protests in Seattle. Equipped with flexible "military operations in urban terrain" and "operations other than war" doctrine, lethal and "less-than-lethal" high-tech weaponry, US "armed forces" and "elite" militarized police units are being trained to eradicate "disorder", "disturbance" and "civil disobedience" in America, according to investigator Frank Morales. Further, Morales says, it may very well be that police/military "civil disturbance" planning is the animating force and the overarching logic behind the huge nationwide growth of police paramilitary units, a growth which coincidentally mirrors rising levels of police violence directed at the American people, particularly "non-white" poor and working people. The plan is an outgrowth of the 1967 National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders commissioned by President Johnson, which was implemented at Kent State University in 1970, when four students were slain by marksmen who were ordered to fire on unarmed students. A subplan, Operation Cable Splicer, is designed to control civilian populations and take over state and local governments. Journalist Bill Moyers later lists Operation Cable Splicer and Garden Plot among examples of ways "the secret government [has] waged war on the American people." Senator Frank Church's Committee to Study Government Operations sheds light on government-sanctioned civil rights abuses, most notably those conducted from 1956 to 1971, under the COINTELPRO initiative. (What Really Happened, Buzzflash)
- January 19: George W. Bush, in his last semester at Yale, attempts to join the Texas Air National Guard, most likely as a way to dodge duty in Vietnam. He fails the medical exam due to minor dental problems, and scores a dismal 25% on the pilot aptitude test. (Ian Williams)
- January 21: The battle of Khe Sanh begins. The Khe Sanh area is a pass in the mountains forming the border of Laos and South Vietnam, and militarily quite valuable. One of the most fierce battles in US Marine history, 168 Marines and over 800 NVA are killed in the fighting, which continues for months. Officially, the battle ends six months later, and the main US objectives of securing the pass and nearby roadways are achieved. A young Max Cleland, who will years later be elected to the Senate as a Democrat, loses an arm and both legs during the fighting; in 2004, Cleland will lose his Senate seat in part due to vicious, unfounded attacks on his service during the battle by his Republican opponent, Saxby Chambliss, who managed to avoid service in Vietnam. (Chronology of US-Vietnam Relations, Khe Sanh Veterans)
Tet Offensive
- January 31: The turning point of the war occurs as 84,000 Viet Cong guerrillas aided by NVA troops launch the Tet Offensive attacking a hundred cities and towns throughout South Vietnam. The surprise offensive is closely observed by American TV news crews in Vietnam which film the US embassy in Saigon being attacked by 17 Viet Cong commandos, along with bloody scenes from battle areas showing American soldiers under fire, dead and wounded. The graphic color film footage is then quickly relayed back to the states for broadcast on nightly news programs. Americans at home thus have a front row seat in their living rooms to the Viet Cong/NVA assaults against their fathers, sons and brothers, ten thousand miles away. "The whole thing stinks, really," says a Marine under fire at Hue after more than 100 Marines are killed. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- February 1: In Saigon during Tet, a suspected Viet Cong guerrilla is shot in the head by South Vietnam's police chief Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan, in full view of an NBC news cameraman and an Associated Press still photographer. The haunting AP photo taken by Eddie Adams appears on the front page of most American newspapers the next morning. Americans also observe the filmed execution on NBC TV; the film and photos spark fresh outrage across the nation. Another controversy during Tet, and one of the most controversial statements of the entire war, is made by an American officer who states, "We had to destroy it, in order to save it," referring to a small city near Saigon leveled by American bombs. His statement is later used by many as a metaphor for the American experience in Vietnam. (Vietnam War Timeline)
A Viet Cong guerrilla is executed on film
- February 2: President Johnson labels the Tet Offensive "a complete failure." For the North Vietnamese, the Tet Offensive is both a military and political failure in Vietnam. The "general uprising" they had hoped to ignite among South Vietnamese peasants against the Saigon government never materialized. Viet Cong had also come out of hiding to do most of the actual fighting, suffered devastating losses, and never regained their former strength. As a result, most of the fighting will be taken over by North Vietnamese regulars fighting a conventional war. Tet's only success, and an unexpected one, was in eroding grassroots support among Americans and in Congress for continuing the war indefinitely. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- March 1: Clark Clifford, a renowned Washington lawyer and an old friend of the President, becomes the new US Secretary of Defense. For the next few days, Clifford conducts an intensive study of the entire situation in Vietnam, discovers there is no concept or overall plan anywhere in Washington for achieving victory in Vietnam, then reports to President Johnson that the United States should not escalate the war. "The time has come to decide where we go from here," he tells Johnson. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- March 10: The New York Times breaks the news of Westmoreland's 206,000 troop request. The story is denied by the White House. Secretary of State Dean Rusk is then called before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and grilled for two days on live TV about the troop request and the overall effectiveness of Johnson's war strategy. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- March 14: Democratic senator Robert Kennedy offers President Johnson a confidential political proposition. Kennedy will agree to stay out of the presidential race if Johnson will renounce his earlier Vietnam strategy and appoint a committee, including Kennedy, to chart a new course in Vietnam. Johnson spurns the offer. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- March 16: Robert Kennedy announces his candidacy for the presidency. Polls indicate Kennedy is now more popular than the President. During his campaign, Kennedy addresses the issue of his participation in forming President John Kennedy's Vietnam policy by stating, "past error is no excuse for its own perpetuation." (Vietnam War Timeline)
My Lai massacre
- March 16: Over 300 Vietnamese civilians are slaughtered in My Lai hamlet by members of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry US Army (Americal Division), while participating in an airborne assault against suspected Viet Cong encampments in Quang Ngai Province. Upon entering My Lai and finding no Viet Cong, the Americans begin killing every civilian in sight, interrupted only by helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson who lands and begins evacuating civilians after realizing what is happening. The soldiers are told by their superiors when they enter the village, "This is what you've been waiting for -- search and destroy -- and you've got it." My Lai is a small hamlet in the Son My province of South Vietnam, a heavily mined area known as a hotbed of Viet Cong activity. The unit commander, Lieutenant William Calley, orders his men to enter the village firing their weapons, though no fire had been observed preceding their entry. According to eyewitness reports offered after the event, several old men are bayoneted, praying women and children are shot in the back of the head, and at least one girl is raped and then killed. For his part, Calley rounds up a group of the villagers, orders them into a ditch, and mows them down with concentrated machine gun fire. Journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the story in November 1969, after Hersh spoke at length with Vietnam veteran Ron Ridenhour, who had learned of the massacre from friends in Charlie Company. Ridenhour had pleaded with Congress, the White House, and the Pentagon to investigate the matter before speaking with Hersh; the military investigation leads to criminal charges against Calley being filed in September 1969, two months before Hersh's article appears. Calley, who blames his commanding officer, Captain Ernest Medina, for issuing the orders to slaughter the entire viilage, will be convicted of multiple charges and sentenced to life in prison, but will be released in 1974. (Vietnam War Timeline, PBS)
- March 21: A key battle between the fledgling Palestinian Liberation Army and the Israelis is fought in the Jordan Valley at al-Karameh. Israeli troops, after dropping leaflets urging the PLO fighters to surrender, cross the border and engage PLO forces in bloody, hand-to-hand combat. Jordanian forces fight alongside the PLO, saving it from utter rout. Though the PLO suffers nearly three times the losses that the Israelis suffer, the battle becomes a symbol of pride and a rallying cry for the Fatah movement and the PLO in general. After the battle, Israel realizes that the PLO is a serious opponent capable of inflicting real damage upon its military; volunteers pour into Jordan to join Fatah and the PLO. The organizations become the focal point of the Palestinian resistance around the world. Partially through the intervention of Algeria, France's Charles deGaulle allows the PLO to set up its first European mission in Paris later in the year. (Dawoud el-Alami)
- March 22: Johnson promotes General William Westmoreland, the supreme commander of US forces in Vietnam, to serve as the Army Chief of Staff, in part to remove Westmoreland from field command; Westmoreland will be replaced by the quietly competent General Creighton Abrams. (Chronology of US-Vietnam Relations)
- March 28: The initial report by participants at My Lai states that 69 Viet Cong soldiers were killed and makes no mention of civilian causalities. The My Lai massacre is successfully concealed for a year, until a series of letters from Vietnam veteran Ronald Ridenhour spark an official Army investigation that results in Charlie Company Commander Captain Ernest Medina, First Platoon Leader Lieutenant William Calley, and 14 others being brought to trial by the Army. News photos of the carnage, showing a mass of dead children, women and old men, remains one of the most enduring images of America's involvement in Vietnam. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- March 31: President Johnson stuns the world by announcing his surprise decision not to seek re-election. He also announces a partial bombing halt and urges Hanoi to begin peace talks. "We are prepared to move immediately toward peace through negotiations." As a result, peace talks soon begin. (Vietnam War Timeline)
Assassination of Martin Luther King
- April 4: Celebrated civil rights leader Martin Luther King is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, while in town to participate in a garbage workers' strike. Ostensibly shot by white supremacist James Earl Ray, many believe that either the FBI or the CIA may have been involved in the assassination. Fearing an uprising of anguished and aggrieved black Americans, President Johnson orders 21,000 troops into the streets of various US cities to keep down any violent protests; largely due to the efforts of civil rights leaders and organizations, no serious violence breaks out. Nixon speechwriter Pat Buchanan, shortly before King's assassination, calls King "one of the most divisive men in contemporary history" and later writes, "The ship of integration is doing down. It's not our ship." (ZMag, Al Franken)
- April 30 - May 3: The Battle of Dai Do occurs along the Demilitarized Zone as NVA troops seek to open an invasion corridor into South Vietnam. They are halted by a battalion of US Marines. For the time being, this defeat ends North Vietnam's hope of successfully invading the South. They will wait four years, until 1972, before trying again, after most of the Americans have gone. It will actually take seven years, until 1975, for them to succeed. (Vietnam War Timeline)
George W. Bush joins TANG
- May - November: On May 27, George W. Bush joins the Texas Air National Guard just 12 days before his student deferment runs out, committing to serve four years' reserve duty and two years' active duty. He indicates on his application that he does not want to serve overseas (i.e. Vietnam), though in his 1999 ghostwritten autobiography A Charge to Keep he claims that he wanted to volunteer for duty in Vietnam "to relieve active-duty pilots." Although he scores a bare 25% on the entrance exam, he is leapfrogged over 1000 more qualified applicants and given an immediate berth, the last of four pilots' slots available, avoiding the current 18-month wait for a slot. (The unit commander has Bush reprise his sign-up ceremony the next day for a photo-op.) It is later revealed, after many Bush denials, that Bush family friends Ben Barnes (Speaker of the Texas House) and Houston banker Sidney Adger used their influence with Lieutenant General James Rose, then the head of the TANG, to secure G.W. Bush the post. (After years of denials from the Bush family and both Barnes and Adger, Barnes will be forced to admit under oath in 1999 that he did use his influence with Rose to secure Bush the TANG slot. Barnes had been sued by the former head of the Texas lottery, Lawrence Littwin, who alleged that another Texas company, for which Barnes had been a lobbyist, had been given management of the lottery in return for Barnes' silence about his manipulations to get Bush, then the governor of Texas, the posting. Video clips of Barnes's statements confirming his efforts on Bush's behalf can be accessed here.) Either Bush or his father contacted Colonel Walter "Buck" Staudt, the commander of the 147th Fighter Wing of the 111th Tactical Air Recon unit of the TANG, a unit known as "Air Canada" because joining it had all of the advantages of fleeing to Canada to avoid military service without actually having to leave home. Bush will join seven Dallas Cowboys and the sons of Senator Lloyd Bentsen, Senator John Tower, and Governor John Connally in this "champagne unit." (Bush says in A Charge to Keep, "I knew I would serve. Leaving the country was not an option for me; I was too conservative and too traditional. My inclination was to support the government and the war until proven wrong, and that only came later, as I realized we could not explain the mission, had no exit strategy, and did not seem to be fighting to win." Paul Waldman notes that this is standard conservative boilerplate; Lars-Erik Nielsen will later write, "If those three missing conditions had been met, we may presume that Bush would have been trudging through the boonies along with Pat Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, Phil Gramm, Dan Quayle, Rush Limbaugh, and the rest of that blowhard army that shunned service in Vietnam because the war was not being fought hard enough.")
- In May, Bush is sworn in and, after 5 weeks of basic training at Lackland AFB in Texas, is promoted from civilian to second lieutenant, the first and last time in Air Force history such a promotion has taken place with the exception of flight surgeons (in fact, he has no officer training and doesn't yet hold a pilot's license). In 1988, Bush would explain why he was given such preferential treatment: "They could sense that I would be one of the great pilots of all time." Upon completing his six weeks' training, Bush is immediately placed on detached duty so he can work on the Senate campaign of family friend Edward Gurney in Florida, where he remains for two months. Bush does not qualify for either flight training or a direct commission, although he receives both against TANG regulations. The TANG even arranges for Bush to train with the 147th Fighter Group on F-102 fighters, a plane already declared obsolete and being phased out of active service. In November, he reports to Moody AFB in Georgia to take undergraduate flight training. (It is worth noting that Bush's official State Department biography reads in part, "George W. Bush was commissioned as a second lieutenant and spent two years on active duty, flying F-102 fighter interceptors. For almost four years after that, he was on a part-time status, flying occassional missions to help the Air National Guard keep two of its F-102s on round-the-clock service," a statement that is chock full of exaggeration and misstatements.) (AWOLBush, TomPaine/CIS, Mother Jones, UggaBugga, Protalion, John Covington, Washington Post, Austin4Kerry, Kevin Phillips, Ian Williams, Paul Waldman, Mark Crispin Miller)
Paris Peace Talks destabilized by GOP
- May 10: Peace talks begin in Paris but soon stall as the US insists that North Vietnamese troops withdraw from the South, while the North Vietnamese insist on Viet Cong participation in a coalition government in South Vietnam. This marks the beginning of five years of on-again off-again official talks between the U.S. and North Vietnam in Paris. It is later shown that Republican interference, possibly with the participation of a young John Negroponte, stymied any hope of the peace talks bearing fruit, as the Republicans pushed the South Vietnamese to hinder the negotiations in return for promises of rewards and payoffs once the Republicans win the presidency. (Vietnam War Timeline)
Robert F. Kennedy assassinated; Hubert Humphrey nominated as Democratic candidate for president
- June 5: Robert Kennedy is shot and mortally wounded in Los Angeles moments after winning the California Democratic presidential primary election. The assassin is identified as Sirhan Sirhan, a militant Palestinian Arab, but evidence exists disputing that account. Contrary to published reports, Sirhan is not a Muslim, but was raised a Christian. Some conspiracy theorists believe that Sirhan was a victim of the CIA's MK-ULTRA mind control experiments, but evidence supporting this contention is lacking. (Sirhan himself has made statements indicating that he may have been such a victim.) Sirhan "confessed" to the murder in March 1969, but the fact that he maintains a complete lack of memory about the assassination (even under hypnosis) and other irregularities about the confession leads a judge to dismiss Sirhan's statement. Suspicious diary entries centering around the statement "RFK must die" are found in Sirhan's personal effects, along with bizarre theories about Kennedy's involvement in countenancing the 1967 Six-Day War; the diary is believed by some to have been falsified, perhaps by CIA agents. Sirhan will be sentenced to death, but his sentence will be commuted to life in prison when California decides to abandon the death penalty. He is still incarcerated, in isolation in the California State Prison in Corcoran. (Vietnam War Timeline, Wikipedia)
- July: Congress passes a ten percent income tax surcharge to defray the ballooning costs of the war. (Vietnam War Timeline)
Ba'athists take power in Iraq
- July 17: After some years of unrest, including a 3-year period in exile, the Ba'ath party secures power once and for all in Iraq, overthrowing the Arif regime. Saddam Hussein becomes second-in-command under President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr. (FactMonster, MidEast Web, BBC)
- August 8: Richard Nixon is chosen as the Republican presidential candidate and promises "an honorable end to the war in Vietnam." (Vietnam War Timeline)
"Police riots" at the Democratic National Convention
- August 28: During the Democratic national convention in Chicago, 10,000 anti-war protesters gather on downtown streets and are then confronted by 26,000 police and National Guardsmen, who engate in what can best be described as a "police riot." The brutal crackdown is covered live on network TV. 800 demonstrators are injured. The United States is now experiencing a level of social unrest unseen since the American Civil War era. There have been 221 student protests at 101 colleges and universities thus far in 1968. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- September: After basic training, George W. Bush assumes inactive duty status to work on Florida Senator Edward Gurney's campaign. Gurney is a rabid anti-Communist who claims to oppose the "creeping socialism" in the US, and wins the election to become the first Republican senator from Florida since Reconstruction. Bush will assume active duty again in the Air National Guard in November 1968. In 1974, Gurney will be charged with multiple counts of perjury, bribery, and conspiracy in regards to his activities in campaign fundraising, but will dodge the charges when the jury deadlocks. (AWOLBush, Mother Jones, Ian Williams)
Czech Rebellion crushed by Soviet forces
- October 15 - 16: Soviet forces brutally crush the brief democratic rebellion led by Prime Minister Alexander Dubcek in Prague, Czechoslovakia, prompting an outcry from the US and NATO but no military response. In response, Albania withdraws peacefully from the Warsaw Pact, though it had stopped supporting Warsaw Pact actions since 1962, favoring instead to build relations with Communist China. (NATO and UN History)
- November: Kurdish attempts at rebellion hit a record high, including appeals to the UN for intervention. (MidEast Web)
Nixon becomes president
- November 5: Richard M. Nixon defeats Democrat Hubert Humphrey and third-party candidate George Wallace to become US President, with 43% of the popular vote. George H.W. Bush is known to be hungering for the position of President; during the campaign, Nixon gives Bush some much-needed credibility by allowing his name to be mentioned as a possible vice-presidential candidate, though the Nixon campaign never considered him as a running mate. (Watergate Time Line, Chronology of Watergate Crisis, Kevin Phillips)
- A story makes the rounds of Washington insiders and intelligence operatives that Saudi businessman Adnan Khashoggi visits Richard Nixon shortly after his election. Khashoggi, an old friend of Nixon, flies to Nixon's San Clemente home to congratulate him on his victory and to convey the best wishes of Saudi leader Prince Fahd (later King Fahd). Supposedly Khashoggi "accidentally" forgets his briefcase, which is stuffed with a million dollars in hundred-dollar bills, a present from Fahd in hopes that Nixon will be more sympathetic to the Saudis during his administration. CIA operative Larry Kolb says that the story is probably false, because a million dollars in hundreds won't fit inside the average briefcase; however, a briefcase loaded with a million dollars in gemstones is much more believable. (Larry Kolb)
- November 17: For his second tour of duty, newly promoted Lieutenant John Kerry volunteers to command a "Swift Boat," part of a new and highly dangerous program designed to secure Vietnamese rivers from the Viet Cong. He is given command of Swift Boat #44, and begins operations in the Mekong Delta. Three weeks later he is awarded his first Purple Heart, for a wound suffered in combat. (Bush-Kerry Timeline)
- November 27: Nixon asks Harvard professor Henry Kissinger to be his National Security Advisor. Kissinger accepts. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- By year's end, US troop levels in Vietnam reached 495,000 with 30,000 American deaths to date. In 1968, over a thousand a month were killed. An estimated 150,000 soldiers from North Vietnam infiltrated the South via the Ho Chi Minh trail in 1968. Although the US conducted 200 air strikes each day against the trail in late 1968, up to 10,000 NVA supply trucks are en route at any given time. (Vietnam War Timeline)
"Today the greatest menace to mankind may well be the American tendency to overrespond to heathen evils abroad, either by attacking them or by condemning them to outer darkness. The study of American foreign missions and their long-continued conditioning influence at home needs no special advocacy in an age when we get our power politics overextended into foreign disasters like Vietnam mainly through an excess of righteousness and disinterested benevolence, under a President who talks like a Baptist preacher and who inherited his disaster from a Secretary of State who was also a ruling elder of the Presbyterian Church. Plainly the missionary impulse has contributed both to the American swelled head and to its recent crown of thorns." -- East Asian scholar John Fairbank, December 29, 1968
